"The Cuervo Gold, the fine Columbian..."

I received a notice from Typepad that my blog account would be frozen until I posted something about Beirut. When I informed them that this is not a music blog, they said it damn well better start being one.

Because New York needs more of that.

I was thinking of moving to China and starting a weblog focusing on the Party’s reaction to Axl’s forthcoming album, but this article gave me pause:

"...Ms. Hu, one of 500 students at her university's newly bolstered, student-run Internet monitoring group, is a cog in a different kind of force, an ostensibly all-volunteer one that the Chinese government is mobilizing to help it manage the monumental task of censoring the Web.

In April that effort was named 'Let the Winds of a Civilized Internet Blow,' and it is part of a broader 'socialist morality' campaign, known as the 'Eight Honors and Disgraces', begun by the country's leadership to reinforce social and political control."

Anyway, I'm assuming there’s going to be a couple people out there scrambling to lead the Beirut backlash. As a corrective, I’m going try evaluate last night’s Knitting Factory show on its merits.

This is not so easy because the poor kid’s prime time debut was marred by incessant futzing around between songs. What’s the opposite of momentum? Joementum? Whatever you call it, it was in full effect last night.

After taking twice as long as expected to set up before the show, each song was book-ended by maddeningly long pauses to adjust levels and tune up.

You could hear the hype hissing out of the room between songs. Which is ultimately a good thing, I think. Too fast/too soon is no good for any band, much less one led by a gifted teenager.

But let’s cut the kid some slack, shall we? Look at it this way: have you ever woken up one morning to find yourself the Anointed Flavor of the Month, thrust into the klieg lights of blogeoise hype at the tender age of 19? One moment you're tinkering away in obscurity’s dark womb, the next moment you’re suddenly facing a packed house of expectant Taste-Makers, struggling to amplify and tune not one but TWO ukuleles?

So the live show has a lot of rough edges and needs a freshly-charged Tazer to keep things moving. But he’s got skills on the horn and catchy, multi-layered compositions. Let's be adults and not blame him for the disproportionate Buzz he never asked for in the first place.

I wasn’t even going to go to this show but when Jerry declared me the winner of his Beirut/Irving give-away sweepstakes, I couldn’t just slink home after work and watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition. First of all, I don’t have a TV.

I’m very glad I was last night’s Big Winner. Personal highlights from the Beirut set included "Postcards from Italy", the second to last song, and, basically, whenever music interrupted the interminable lag-time between songs.

Oh, and did I mention his VOICE? Wow.

In the meantime, there’s Pela Friday night at Delancey. There’s not a massive amount of gonad-crushing hype around them, but I guess I’ll go anyway.

Comments

[Katrina]

Max, call me, I'll be waiting: 212-479-7990

[Max Power]

I'm all too familiar with those digits, believe me.

[Sufjan]

Max if you don't quit web-stalking Katrina I'm going to sew your ass to your face. Don't. Fuck. With. Me. And if you think you can take Katrina in Scrabble you've got another think coming: she regularly pulls triple word scores off "Secor" and "Enos". So step the fuck off.

[Furious D]

You've been posting these comments yourself, haven't you, John.

[Max Power]

First of all, Furious, the name's Max. Max Power. Secondly, how do we know YOU'RE not John? Thirdly, it gets lonely when Todd's not reading my blog.

[T. Bone]

Todd is watching us, Todd is watching us. Todd is watching us. From a distance.

[pater familias]

fuck todd. there's a fine line between honest and dumb.

by the way... do girls find it sexy when you comment on your own blog?

[self-h8ting hipster]

Wait, so first you steal my shitty tv references, and then you steal my Katrina Kerns fantasy? Most uncool Max, MOST uncool...